[go: up one dir, main page]
Wikipedia

Global Climate Coalition

The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) (1989–2001) was an international lobbyist group of businesses that opposed action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and engaged in climate change denial, publicly challenging the science behind global warming. The GCC was the largest industry group active in climate policy and the most prominent industry advocate in international climate negotiations. The GCC was involved in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, and played a role in blocking ratification by the United States. The coalition knew it could not deny the scientific consensus, but sought to sow doubt over the scientific consensus on climate change and create manufactured controversy.[2]

Global Climate Coalition
AbbreviationGCC
Formation1989
Dissolved2001
TypeAdvocacy group
Legal statusNonprofit[1]
PurposeLobbying
HeadquartersWashington, D.C., U.S.
WebsiteAs of 2006 at Internet Archive

The GCC was dissolved in 2001 after membership declined in the face of improved understanding of the role of greenhouse gases in climate change and of public criticism. It declared that its primary objective had been achieved: U.S. President George W. Bush withdrew the U.S., which alone accounted for nearly a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, from the Kyoto Protocol process through the Senate voting to not ratify the treaty. Thus, this rendered mandatory global reductions unreachable.[3][4][5][6]

Founding

edit

The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) was formed in 1989 as a project under the auspices of the National Association of Manufacturers.[7] The GCC was formed to represent the interests of the major producers and users of fossil fuels,[8][9] to oppose regulation to mitigate global warming,[10][11] and to challenge the science behind global warming.[12][13] Context for the founding of the GCC from 1988 included the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)[14] and NASA climatologist James Hansen's congressional testimony that climate change was occurring.[15] The government affairs' offices of five or six corporations recognized that they had been inadequately organized for the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty that phased out ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons, and the Clean Air Act in the United States, and recognized that fossil fuels would be targeted for regulation.[16][17]

According to GCC's mission statement on the home page of its website, GCC was established: "to coordinate business participation in the international policy debate on the issue of global climate change and global warming,"[18] and GCC's executive director in a 1993 press release said GCC was organized "as the leading voice for industry on the global climate change issue."[19]

GCC reorganized independently in 1992,[7] with the first chairman of the board of directors being the director of government relations for the Phillips Petroleum Company.[20] Exxon, later ExxonMobil, was a founding member, and a founding member of the GCC's board of directors; the energy giant also had a leadership role in coalition.[21][22][23][24][25][26] The American Petroleum Institute (API) was a leading member of the coalition.[27][28] API's executive vice president was a chairman of the coalition's board of directors.[29][30] Other GCC founding members included the National Coal Association, United States Chamber of Commerce, American Forest & Paper Association, and Edison Electric Institute. GCC's executive director John Shlaes was previously the director of government relations at the Edison Electric Institute.[31] GCC was run by Ruder Finn, a public relations firm.[32] GCC's comprehensive PR campaign was designed by E. Bruce Harrison, who had been creating campaigns for the US industry against environmental legislation from the 1970s.[33]

GCC was the largest industry group active in climate policy.[34] About 40 companies and industry associations were GCC members.[35] Considering member corporations, member trade associations, and business represented by member trade associations, GCC represented over 230,000 businesses. Industry sectors represented included: aluminium, paper, transportation, power generation, petroleum, chemical, and small businesses.[1] All major oil companies were members until 1996 (Shell left in 1998).[36] GCC members were from industries that would have been adversely effected by limitations on fossil fuel consumption.[37] GCC was funded by membership dues.[1][38]

Advocacy activities

edit

GCC was one of the most powerful lobbyist groups against action to mitigate global warming.[39][40] It was the most prominent industry advocate in international climate negotiations,[41] and led a campaign opposed to policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[42] The GCC was one of the most powerful non-governmental organizations representing business interests in climate policy, according to Kal Raustiala, professor at the UCLA School of Law.[43]

GCC's advocacy activities included lobbying government officials, grassroots lobbying through press releases and advertising, participation in international climate conferences, criticism of the processes of international climate organizations, critiques of climate models, and personal attacks on scientists and environmentalists. Policy positions advocated by the coalition included denial of anthropogenic climate change, emphasizing the uncertainty in climatology, advocating for additional research, highlighting the benefits and downplaying the risks of climate change, stressing the priority of economic development, defending national sovereignty, and opposition to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

GCC sent delegations to all of the major international climate conventions. Only nations and non-profits may send official delegates to the United Nations Climate Change conferences. GCC registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a non-governmental organization, and executives from GCC members attended official UN conferences as GCC delegates.[44]

In 1990, after US president, George H. W. Bush, addressed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) urging caution in responding to global warming, and offering no new proposals, GCC said Bush's speech was "very strong" and concurred with the priorities of economic development and additional research.[45] GCC sent 30 attendees to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,[1] where it lobbied to keep targets and timetables out of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.[46] In December, 1992 GCC's executive director wrote in a letter to The New York Times: "...there is considerable debate on whether or not man-made greenhouse gases (produced primarily by burning fossil fuels) are triggering a dangerous 'global warming' trend."[47] In 1992 GCC distributed a half-hour video entitled The Greening of Planet Earth, to hundreds of journalists, the White House, and several Middle Eastern oil-producing countries, which suggested that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide could boost crop yields and solve world hunger.[48][49]

In 1993, after then US president Bill Clinton pledged "to reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases to their 1990 levels by the year 2000," GCC's executive director said it "could jeopardize the economic health of the nation."[50] GCC's lobbying was key to the defeat in the United States Senate of Clinton's 1993 BTU tax proposal.[51] In 1994, after United States Secretary of Energy Hazel R. O'Leary said the 1992 UNFCCC needed to be strengthened, and that voluntary carbon dioxide reductions may not be enough, GCC said it was: "disturbed by the implication that the President's voluntary climate action plan, which is just getting under way, will be inadequate and that more stringent measures may be needed domestically."[52]

GCC did not fund original scientific research and its climate claims relied largely on the World Climate Review and its successor the World Climate Report edited by Patrick Michaels and funded by the Western Fuels Association.[1] GCC promoted the views of climate deniers such as Michaels, Fred Singer, and Richard Lindzen.[53] In 1996, GCC published a report entitled Global warming and extreme weather: fact vs. fiction written by Robert E. Davis.[1][54]

GCC members questioned the efficacy of climate change denial and shifted their message to highlighting the economic costs of proposed greenhouse gas emission regulations and the limited effectiveness of proposals exempting developing nations.[55] In 1995, after the United Nations Climate Change conference in Berlin agreed to negotiate greenhouse gas emission limits, GCC's executive director said the agreement gave "developing countries like China, India and Mexico a free ride" and would "change the relations between sovereign countries and the United Nations. This could have very significant implications. It could be a way of capping our economy."[56][57] At a Washington, D.C. press conference on the eve of the second United Nations Climate Change conference in Geneva, GCC's executive director said, "The time for decision is not yet now."[58] At the conference in Geneva, GCC issued a statement that said it was too early to determine the causes of global warming.[59] GCC representatives lobbied scientists at the September, 1996 IPCC conference in Mexico City.[60]

After actor Leonardo DiCaprio, chairman of Earth Day 2000, interviewed Clinton for ABC News, GCC sent out an e-mail that said that DiCaprio's first car was a Jeep Grand Cherokee and that his current car was a Chevrolet Tahoe.[61]

Predicting Future Climate Change: A Primer

edit

In 1995, GCC assembled an advisory committee of scientific and technical experts to compile an internal-only, 17-page report on climate science entitled Predicting Future Climate Change: A Primer, which said: "The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate is well established and cannot be denied." In early 1996, GCC's operating committee asked the advisory committee to redact the sections that rebutted contrarian arguments, and accepted the report and distributed it to members. The draft document was disclosed in a 2007 lawsuit filed by the auto industry against California's efforts to regulate automotive greenhouse gas emissions.[62][63]

According to The New York Times, the primer demonstrated that "even as the coalition worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted."[62] According to the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2015, the primer was: "remarkable for indisputably showing that, while some fossil fuel companies' deception about climate science has continued to the present day, at least two decades ago the companies' own scientific experts were internally alerting them about the realities and implications of climate change."[64]

IPCC Second Assessment Report

edit

GCC was an industry participant in the review process of the IPCC Second Assessment Report.[1] In 1996, prior to the publication of the Second Assessment Report, GCC distributed a report entitled The IPCC: Institutionalized Scientific Cleansing to reporters, US Congressmen, and scientists. The coalition report said that Benjamin D. Santer, the lead author of Chapter 8 in the assessment, entitled "Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes," had altered the text, after acceptance by the Working Group, and without approval of the authors, to strike content characterizing the uncertainty of the science. Frederick Seitz repeated GCC's charges in a letter to The Wall Street Journal published June 12, 1996.[65][66][67] The coalition ran newspaper advertisements that said: "unless the management of the IPCC promptly undertakes to republish the printed versions ... the IPCC's credibility will have been lost."[68]

Santer and his co-authors said the edits were integrations of comments from peer review as per agreed IPCC processes.[69]

Opposition to Kyoto Protocol

edit

GCC was the main industry group in the United States opposed to the Kyoto Protocol,[25] which committed signatories to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The coalition "was the leading industry group working in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol," according to Greenpeace,[70] and led opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, according to the Los Angeles Times.[71]

Prior to 1997, GCC spent about $1 million annually lobbying against limits on CO2 emissions;[72] before Kyoto, GCC annual revenue peaked around $1.5 million;[73] GCC spent $13 million on advertising in opposition to the Kyoto treaty.[74][75] The coalition funded the Global Climate Information Project and hired the advertising firm that produced the 1993–1994 Harry and Louise advertising campaign which opposed Clinton's health care initiative.[1][75] The advertisements said, "the UN Climate Treaty isn't Global...and it won't work"[76] and "Americans will pay the price...50 cents more for every gallon of gasoline."[77]

GCC opposed the signing of the Kyoto Protocol by Clinton.[78] GCC was influential in the withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol by the administration of President George W. Bush.[79] According to briefing notes prepared by the United States Department of State for the under-secretary of state, Bush's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was "in part based on input from" GCC.[25][80][81] GCC lobbying was key to the July, 1997 unanimous passage in the United States Senate of the Byrd–Hagel Resolution, which reflected the coalition's position that restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions must include developing countries.[1][82] GCC's chairman told a US congressional committee that mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits were: "an unjustified rush to judgement."[83] The coalition sent 50 delegates to the third Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Kyoto.[1] On December 11, 1997, the day the Kyoto delegates reached agreement on legally binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, GCC's chairman said the agreement would be defeated by the US Senate.[84] In 2001, GCC's executive director compared the Kyoto Protocol to the RMS Titanic.[85]

Membership decline

edit

GCC's challenge to science prompted a backlash from environmental groups.[86] Environmentalists described GCC as a "club for polluters" and called for members to withdraw their support.[87] "Abandonment of the Global Climate Coalition by leading companies is partly in response to the mounting evidence that the world is indeed getting warmer," according to environmentalist Lester R. Brown.[88] In 1998, Green Party delegates to the European Parliament introduced an unsuccessful proposal that the World Meteorological Organization name hurricanes after GCC members.[89] Defections weakened the coalition.[90] In 1996, British Petroleum resigned and later announced support for the Kyoto Protocol and commitment to greenhouse gas emission reductions.[91] In 1997, Royal Dutch Shell withdrew after criticism from European environmental groups. In 1999, Ford Motor Company was the first US company to withdraw; the New York Times described the departure as "the latest sign of divisions within heavy industry over how to respond to global warming."[92] DuPont left the coalition in 1997 and Shell USA (then known as Shell Oil Company) left in 1998. In 2000, GCC corporate members were the targets of a national student-run university divestiture campaign. Between December, 1999 and early March, 2000, Texaco, the Southern Company, General Motors and Daimler-Chrysler withdrew.[71][87][93] Some former coalition members joined the Business Environmental Leadership Council within the Pew Center on Global Climate Change which represented diverse stakeholders, including business interests, with a commitment to peer-reviewed scientific research and accepted the need for emissions restrictions to address climate change.[86]

In 2000, GCC restructured as an association of trade associations; membership was limited to trade associations, and individual corporations were represented through their trade association. Brown called the restructuring "a thinly veiled effort to conceal the real issue – the loss of so many key corporate members."[64][88]

Dissolution

edit

After US President George W. Bush withdrew the US from the Kyoto process in 2001, GCC disbanded.[94][95] Absent the participation of the US, the effectiveness of the Kyoto process was limited.[96] GCC said on its website that its mission had been successfully achieved, writing "At this point, both Congress and the Administration agree that the U.S. should not accept the mandatory cuts in emissions required by the protocol."[6] Networks of well-funded industry lobbyists and other climate change denial groups continue its work.

Reception

edit

In 2015, the Union of Concerned Scientists compared GCC's role in the public policy debate on climate change to the roles in the public policy debate on tobacco safety of the Tobacco Institute, the tobacco industry's lobbyist group, and the Council for Tobacco Research, which promoted misleading science.[97][98] Environmentalist Bill McKibben said that, by promoting doubt about the science, "throughout the 1990s, even as other nations took action, the fossil fuel industry's Global Climate Coalition managed to make American journalists treat the accelerating warming as a he-said-she-said story."[99] According to the Los Angeles Times, GCC members integrated projections from climate models into their operational planning while publicly criticising the models.[100]

Former Vice President Al Gore described the oil companies' blocking campaign as "the most serious crime of the post-World War Two era".[101]

Members

edit

Membership notes

edit
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u McGregor 2008: 1992 board of directors
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Brill 2001
  3. ^ McGregor 2008
  4. ^ a b c d Revkin 2009
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Brown 2000
  6. ^ a b Mulvey & Shulman 2015
  7. ^ a b c d e f Lieberman & Rust 2015

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Franz 1998
  2. ^ Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate Archived 2021-06-09 at the Wayback Machine, New York Times
  3. ^ Adam, David (December 7, 2005). "Oil industry targets EU climate policy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 10, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2016. During the 1990s US oil companies and other corporations funded a group called the Global Climate Coalition, which emphasised uncertainties in climate science and disputed the need to take action. It was disbanded when President Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto process.
  4. ^ May 2005: The GCC was "deactivated" in 2001, once President Bush made it clear he intended to reject the Kyoto protocol.
  5. ^ Levy 2001: Without the participation of the United States, which accounts for nearly one-quarter of global emissions, the Kyoto Protocol is meaningless.
  6. ^ a b "Home". Global Climate Coalition. Archived from the original on October 14, 2002. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  7. ^ a b Levy & Rothenberg 1999: On the organizational level, the three major US automobile companies, as well as the American Automobile Manufacturers Association (AAMA) worked largely through the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which was formed in 1989, initially under the auspices of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), but reorganized as an independent entity in 1992.
  8. ^ Kolk, Ans; Levy, David (2003). "Multinationals and global climate change. Issues for the automotive and oil industries". In Lundan, Sarianna M. (ed.). Multinationals, Environment and Global Competition. doi:10.1016/S1064-4857(03)09008-9. ISBN 9780762309665. Retrieved February 23, 2016. This aggressive approach was typified in the activities of The Global Climate Coalition (GCC), an industry association formed in 1989 to represent major fossil fuel users and producers, which has strongly challenged the scientific basis for action, questioned the legitimacy of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and highlighted potential economic costs.
  9. ^ Franz 1998: GCC was established in 1989 to coordinate business participation in the science and policy debate on the climate change issue.
  10. ^ Rahm 2009: In 1989, ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute (which was twice chaired by Lee Raymond) formed the Global Climate Coalition. The Coalition's mission was to oppose policy action on climate change. ExxonMobil and the Coalition argued that global warming was a natural phenomenon and that human actions were not contributing to it.
  11. ^ Mooney 2005: In 1989, the petroleum and automotive industries and the National Association of Manufacturers forged the Global Climate Coalition to oppose mandatory actions to address global warming.
  12. ^ Lee 2003: Exxon's backing of third-party groups is a marked contrast to its more public role in the Global Climate Coalition, an industry group formed in 1989 to challenge the science around global warming.
  13. ^ Brulle, Robert J. (2022). "Advocating inaction: a historical analysis of the Global Climate Coalition". Environmental Politics. 32 (2): 185–206. doi:10.1080/09644016.2022.2058815. ISSN 0964-4016. S2CID 248112482.
  14. ^ Dunlap, Riley E.; McCright, Aaron M. (2011). "Organized climate change denial" (PDF). The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. OUP Oxford. pp. 144–160. ISBN 9780199566600. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016. The Global Climate Coalition (GCC), formed in 1989 in reaction to the establishment of the IPCC, was an early front group designed to combat evidence of climate change and climate policy making.
  15. ^ McGregor 2008: One of the reasons given for its formation was that in 1988 there was a: “very alarmist presentation by James Hansen of NASA to a Senate Committee that climate change was taking place”.
  16. ^ Franz 1998: The GCC began when the federal affairs representatives of five or six companies realized that they had not been organized for the Clean Air Act and its amendments or for the Montreal protocol. By 1989, it seemed clear the climate issue would come to directly address fossil fuels.
  17. ^ Levy & Rothenberg 1999: A senior GCC staff member, discussing motivations for the creation of the GCC, expressed the view that industry had “been caught napping” by the ozone issue, and that there was also considerable dissatisfaction with the Clean Air Act process. As he expressed it, “Boy, if we didn't like the Montreal Protocol, we knew we really wouldn’t like climate change! This is the mother of all issues!”
  18. ^ "Home". Global Climate Coalition. Archived from the original on March 2, 2001. Retrieved February 18, 2016. The Global Climate Coalition is an organization of trade associations established in 1989 to coordinate business participation in the international policy debate on the issue of global climate change and global warming.
  19. ^ Shlaes, John (February 2, 1993). "Statement by John Shlaes, executive director, Global Climate Coalition" (Press release). Global Climate Coalition. PR Newswire. Archived from the original on July 10, 2017. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  20. ^ McGregor 2008: ... GCC’s first chairman Thomas Lambrix, director of government relations for Phillips Petroleum.
  21. ^ Whitman 2015: The company, which in 1999 became Exxon Mobil, helped found the Global Climate Coalition, which from 1989 to 2002 argued the role "of greenhouse gases in climate change is not well understood," the New York Times reported Friday.
  22. ^ Banerjee, Song & Hasemyer 2015: "Exxon helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition, an alliance of some of the world's largest companies seeking to halt government efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions."
  23. ^ Van den Hove, Le Menestrel & De Bettignies 2002: Instrumental to the implementation of Exxon’s strategy was its participation in industry and lobby groups. Exxon is a prominent member of the American Petroleum Institute (API), the major US petroleum industry trade association, and was, from the date of its creation in 1989, a board member of the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), one of the most influential US lobbying front group on the climate issue.
  24. ^ Lorenzetti 2015: Exxon has known about climate change for almost 40 years, despite its efforts to continue to promote fossil fuels and deny its existence throughout the 1990s as a leader of the Global Climate Coalition
  25. ^ a b c Vidal 2005: In briefing papers given before meetings to the US under-secretary of state, Paula Dobriansky, between 2001 and 2004, the administration is found thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, and also seeking its advice on what climate change policies the company might find acceptable. "Potus [president of the United States] rejected Kyoto in part based on input from you [the Global Climate Coalition]," says one briefing note before Ms Dobriansky's meeting with the GCC, the main anti-Kyoto US industry group, which was dominated by Exxon.
  26. ^ Banerjee, Song & Hasemyer 2015: Exxon helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition
  27. ^ Mooney 2005: In 1989, the petroleum and automotive industries and the National Association of Manufacturers forged the Global Climate Coalition to oppose mandatory actions to address global warming. Exxon—later ExxonMobil—was a leading member, as was the American Petroleum Institute
  28. ^ Lieberman & Rust 2015: a collection of energy companies, primarily from the coal sector, created the Global Climate Coalition to fight impending climate change regulations. The group approached the American Petroleum Institute for funding and support in the early 1990s. William O’Keefe, executive vice president of the Petroleum Institute at the time, delivered.
  29. ^ Lieberman & Rust 2015: William O’Keefe, executive vice president of the Petroleum Institute at the time, delivered. The major oil companies, he recalled, decided “something has to be done.” By 1993, he was sitting on the board, and within a few years, he was chairman.
  30. ^ "Global Warming Deniers Well Funded". Newsweek. August 12, 2007. Archived from the original on June 19, 2021. Retrieved February 6, 2016. There is too much "scientific uncertainty" to justify curbs on greenhouse emissions, William O'Keefe, then a vice president of the American Petroleum Institute and leader of the Global Climate Coalition, suggested in 1996.
  31. ^ McGregor 2008: The initial GCC members included major fossil fuel industry organisations (American Petroleum Institute, National Coal Association), major generators and industrial users of electricity (most generators in US use coal) and more general Business Interest NGOs (BINGOs) - US Chamber of Commerce, American Paper Institute and others... Executive Director...John Shlaes, was previously director of government relations at Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the association of investor-owned electric utilities. EEI was a founding member of the GCC.
  32. ^ Hammond 1997: The Global Climate Coalition (GCC), run by Washington P.R. firm Ruder Finn, represents the big oil, gas, coal, and auto corporations.
  33. ^ Brulle, Robert J. (11 April 2022). "Advocating inaction: a historical analysis of the Global Climate Coalition". Environmental Politics. 32 (2). Taylor&Francis Online: 185–206. doi:10.1080/09644016.2022.2058815. S2CID 248112482.
  34. ^ Levy, David L.; Egan, Daniel (1998). "Capital contests: National and transnational channels of corporate influence on the climate change negotiations". Politics and Society. 26 (3): 337–361. doi:10.1177/0032329298026003003. S2CID 154879490. Archived from the original on June 29, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  35. ^ Levy & Rothenberg 1999: The GCC represented about 40 companies and industry associations
  36. ^ Levy, David L.; Kolk, Ans (2002). "Strategic responses to global climate change: Conflicting pressures on multinationals in the oil industry". Business and Politics. 4 (3): 275–300. doi:10.1080/1369525021000158391. Archived from the original on August 7, 2021. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
  37. ^ Levy 1997: the Global Climate Coalition (GCC), which represents more than 50 companies and trade associations in the oil, coal, utility, chemicals, and auto industries. These industries stand to lose out if curbs are placed on fossil fuels
  38. ^ Revkin 2009: The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others.
  39. ^ Levy 1997: One of the most powerful lobbies opposing action on global warming is the Global Climate Coalition (GCC)
  40. ^ Brulle, Robert J. (2019). "Networks of Opposition: A Structural Analysis of U.S. Climate Change Countermovement Coalitions 1989–2015". Sociological Inquiry. 91 (3): 603–624. doi:10.1111/soin.12333. ISSN 1475-682X. S2CID 210361558.
  41. ^ Levy & Rothenberg 1999: Although the GCC was constituted as a U.S.-based organization and was focused on domestic lobbying, a number of US subsidiaries of European multinationals also joined, and the GCC quickly rose to be the most prominent voice of industry, both in the US and in the international negotiations.
  42. ^ Frumhoff, Peter C.; Heede, Richard; Oreskes, Naomi (September 2015). "The climate responsibilities of industrial carbon producers" (PDF). Climatic Change. 132 (2): 157–171. Bibcode:2015ClCh..132..157F. doi:10.1007/s10584-015-1472-5. S2CID 152573421. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 19, 2019. Retrieved February 23, 2016. ...leading investor-owned fossil fuel corporations, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and British Petroleum, created the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) to oppose greenhouse gas emission reduction policies. From 1989 to 2002, the GCC led an aggressive lobbying and advertising campaign aimed at achieving these goals by sowing doubt about the integrity of the IPCC and the scientific evidence that heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels drive global warming. They worked successfully to prevent the United States from signing the Kyoto Protocol after it was negotiated in 1997.
  43. ^ Raustiala, Kal (2001). "Nonstate actors in the global climate regime" (PDF). In Luterbacher, Urs; Sprinz, Detlef F. (eds.). International Relations and Global Climate Change. MIT Press. p. 117. ISBN 9780262621496. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 16, 2016. Retrieved February 12, 2016. Perhaps the most powerful broad-based business NGO is the U.S.-based Global Climate Coalition, which has an annual budget of $2 million and a membership roster that comprises many of the most powerful American and European corporations, including several from the energy sector.
  44. ^ McGregor 2008: Only not-for-profit organisations and governments are allowed to have delegates at the official international meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC 2007). As GCC was a registered NGO with the UNFCCC, many executives from its member corporations registered as delegates under GCC for the official meetings.
  45. ^ Shabecoff, Philip (February 6, 1990). "Bush Asks Cautious Response To Threat of Global Warming". The New York Times. p. 1. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  46. ^ Dolan, Maura (May 30, 1992). "U.S. Business Woos Delegates to Earth Summit". Los Angeles Times. p. 1. Archived from the original on 23 February 2016. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  47. ^ Schlaes, John (December 22, 1992). "What Global Warming?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  48. ^ Lieberman & Rust 2015: For the next 10 years, the coalition, whose annual revenue peaked at about $1.5 million before Kyoto, spent heavily on lobbying and public relations campaigns. As part of the effort, it distributed a video to hundreds of journalists, the White House and several Middle Eastern oil-producing countries suggesting that higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were beneficial for crop production, and could be the solution to world hunger.
  49. ^ Helvarg 1996: Western Fuels funded a $250,000 video titled The Greening of Planet Earth, which was distributed by the Global Climate Coalition to more than 1,000 US journalists, the White House and various oil states in the Middle East. The video claims that industrial carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere acts as a kind of airborne nutrient that aids plant growth and therefore, by increasing crop yields, could be the solution to world hunger.
  50. ^ Berke, Richard L. (April 22, 1993). "Clinton declares new U.S. Policies for Environment". The New York Times. p. 1. Archived from the original on February 16, 2016. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  51. ^ Van den Hove, Le Menestrel & De Bettignies 2002: The API and the GCC were very hostile to action on climate change...They were key to defeating President Clinton’s 1993 BTU tax proposal, through lobbying the Congress.
  52. ^ Cushman Jr., John H. (August 16, 1994). "Clinton wants to strengthen global pact on air pollution". The New York Times. p. 1. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  53. ^ Levy & Rothenberg 1999: The GCC's efforts to challenge the science of climate change took a number of forms. It actively promoted the views of climate skeptics such as Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer, and Richard Lindzen in its literature, press releases, and congressional testimony, and would direct press inquiries to these people.
  54. ^ Davis, Robert E. (1996), Global warming and extreme weather: fact vs. fiction, Washington D.C.: Global Climate Coalition
  55. ^ Levy 2001: Within the GCC, more companies were questioning the value of aggressively denying the climate problem...In the run-up to the Kyoto conference in December 1997, the GCC decided to shift strategy. Instead of challenging the science, industry's message shifted to the high cost and limited environmental effectiveness of an agreement that excludes developing countries from emission controls.
  56. ^ Kinzer, Stephen (April 8, 1995). "Nations Pledge to Set Limits by 1997 on Warming Gases". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  57. ^ Stevens, William K. (April 11, 1995). "Climate Talks Enter Harder Phase of Cutting Back Emissions". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 7, 2016.
  58. ^ Cushman Jr., John H. (July 8, 1996). "Report says global warming poses threat to public health". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  59. ^ "Climate Session Opens with Words of Warning". The New York Times. July 9, 1996. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  60. ^ Helvarg 1996: At the I.P.C.C.'s most recent session in Mexico City on September 11–13, representatives from industry's Climate Council, Global Climate Coalition, Edison Electric Institute, World Coal Institute and IPIECA (another oil group) were buttonholing scientists, trying to weaken report language and pressing for restrictions on new research.
  61. ^ Barron, James; Rohde, David; Lee, Linda (April 13, 2000). "Public Lives". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  62. ^ a b Revkin 2009
  63. ^ Bernstein, Leonard S. (December 21, 1995). "Approval draft: Predicting Future Climate Change: A Primer" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on December 2, 2015. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
  64. ^ a b Mulvey & Shulman 2015
  65. ^ Oreskes, Naomi; Conway, Erik M. (2010). Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 200–2008. ISBN 978-1-59691-610-4.
  66. ^ Stevens, William K. (June 17, 1996). "U.N. climate report was improperly altered, underplaying uncertainties, critics say". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  67. ^ Van den Hove, Le Menestrel & De Bettignies 2002: ...the GCC personally attacked an IPCC lead author, Dr. Benjamin Santer.
  68. ^ Levy & Rothenberg 1999
  69. ^ "Special insert--An open letter to Ben Santer". University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Summer 1996. Archived from the original on June 26, 2006. Retrieved February 9, 2016.
  70. ^ "Global Climate Coalition Meeting". Greenpeace. June 21, 2001. Archived from the original on February 23, 2016. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
  71. ^ a b "Briefly: Autos; Also". Los Angeles Times. March 15, 2000. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved February 21, 2016. General Motors Corp. said it has quit the Global Climate Coalition, a lobbying group that has led the opposition to a 1997 global warming treaty reached in Kyoto, Japan.
  72. ^ Levy 1997: the GCC has spent nearly $1 million a year to convince policy makers that proposals to limit CO emissions: "are premature and are not justified by the state of scientific knowledge or the economic risks they create."
  73. ^ Lieberman & Rust 2015: the coalition, whose annual revenue peaked at about $1.5 million before Kyoto
  74. ^ Farley 1997: The cost of a recent, influential $13-million advertising campaign sponsored by the Global Climate Coalition equaled Greenpeace's entire annual budget.
  75. ^ a b Mitchell 1997: Using the same media team of Goddard Claussen that produced the Harry and Louise ads, the Global Climate Coalition, an association of industry groups and some unions, has already run $13 million in television advertisements against the agreement.
  76. ^ Van den Hove, Le Menestrel & De Bettignies 2002
  77. ^ Brown 2000: Among other things, the ads indicated that “Americans will pay the price ... 50¢ more for every gallon of gasoline,”even though there was no proposal for such a tax.
  78. ^ Farley 1997: A group of energy companies, the Global Climate Coalition, has urged President Clinton not to OK signing a treaty here
  79. ^ Rahm 2009: The Global Climate Coalition was influential in Bush administration decision making on withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and policy positions on a successor treaty.
  80. ^ Mooney 2005: ...the Global Climate Coalition. For her meeting with the latter group, one of Dobriansky’s prepared talking points was “POTUS [President Bush in Secret Service parlance] rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you.”
  81. ^ Brill 2001
  82. ^ Van den Hove, Le Menestrel & De Bettignies 2002: The GCC was indeed instrumental to the passing the Byrd–Hagel Senate resolution in July 1997
  83. ^ Stevens, William K. (August 5, 1997). "Industries Revisit Global Warming". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 27, 2015. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  84. ^ Stevens, William K. (December 11, 1997). "Meeting Reaches Accord to Reduce Greenhouse Gases". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  85. ^ Revkin, Andrew C.; Banerjee, Neela (August 1, 2001). "Some Energy Executives Urge U.S. Shift on Global Warming". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  86. ^ a b Jones & Levy 2007
  87. ^ a b "DaimlerChrysler Leaving Climate Coalition". The New York Times. January 7, 2000. Archived from the original on June 27, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  88. ^ a b Brown 2000
  89. ^ Karliner, Joshua (December 1, 1998). "Petroleum Weather". Earth Island Journal. 14: 48.
  90. ^ Levy 2001: The GCC was weakened by a series of defections
  91. ^ Frey, Darcy (December 8, 2002). "How Green Is BP?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 26, 2023. Retrieved February 8, 2016.: In 1996, BP resigned from the Global Climate Coalition, then offered its support of the Kyoto Protocol
  92. ^ Bradsher, Keith (1999-12-07). "Ford Announces Its Withdrawal From Global Climate Coalition". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2018-10-02. Retrieved February 8, 2016.
  93. ^ Gelbspan, Ross. "GCC Suffers Technical Knockout, Industry defections decimate Global Climate Coalition". The Heat is Online. Archived from the original on June 14, 2018. Retrieved February 8, 2016. Between December, 1999 and early March, 2000, the GCC was deserted by Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, the Southern Company and General Motors...The defeat of the Global Climate Coalition reflects, among other things, a student divestiture campaign which urged universities to divest their holdings in companies that belonged to the GCC. It also represents a sustained effort by the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, which has mounted shareholder actions against a number of intransigent corporations.
  94. ^ Adam, David (December 7, 2005). "Oil industry targets EU climate policy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 10, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2016. During the 1990s US oil companies and other corporations funded a group called the Global Climate Coalition, which emphasised uncertainties in climate science and disputed the need to take action. It was disbanded when President Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto process.
  95. ^ May 2005: The GCC was "deactivated" in 2001, once President Bush made it clear he intended to reject the Kyoto protocol.
  96. ^ Levy 2001: Without the participation of the United States, which accounts for nearly one-quarter of global emissions, the Kyoto Protocol is meaningless.
  97. ^ Mulvey & Shulman 2015: With key members bowing out, the GCC announced in 2000 that it would undergo a “strategic restructuring” much as the tobacco industry, under growing pressure, gave up its lobbying arm (the Tobacco Institute) and its wing devoted to promoting misleading science about the links between tobacco and disease (the Council for Tobacco Research) as part of the 1998 master settlement agreement with U.S. states.
  98. ^ Rahm 2009: The strategy drew on tactics pioneered by the tobacco industry in the 1960s - to promote doubt and uncertainty in the minds of the public that human actions were not contributing to global warming.
  99. ^ McKibben, Bill (May 2005). "Climate of Denial". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
  100. ^ Lieberman & Rust 2015: O’Keefe said no one in the coalition denied the existence of global warming, but there was uncertainty about how well the models could project its future impact. What coalition members felt certain about, he said, was that any government-mandated emission reductions would have “a clear negative impact,” including unemployment, higher energy prices and a drop in the U.S. standard of living. When it came to their own investments, though, coalition members relied on scientific projections — from rising sea levels to thawing permafrost — to design and protect multibillion-dollar investments in pipelines, gas developments and offshore oil rigs.
  101. ^ Jane McMullen (23 July 2022). "The audacious PR plot that seeded doubt about climate change". BBC. Archived from the original on 23 July 2022. Retrieved 23 July 2022.

Bibliography

edit
edit

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_Climate_Coalition&oldid=1246808055"